


poppies whose roots are in man's veins

by JennaCupcakes



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotionally Dishonest Conversations About Retirement Plans, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Somewhat Unsatisfying Sexual Encounters, Suicidal Ideation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27215563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaCupcakes/pseuds/JennaCupcakes
Summary: “Why don’t you lie down with me, Francis?”Francis’s eyes snap to James again. James’s eyes are closed, still, one hand lazily indicating the pillows next to him in an invitation that borders on—that borders on—“I won’t bite. Don’t have the teeth for it anymore, I’m afraid.” James smiles a half-smile, satisfied but close-mouthed, and Francis feels guilt like a hot spike driven into his guts. He laughs, weakly. James opens his eyes at the sound.Francis seeks refuge in the pipe.Francis. James. An opium den. They try to make the pieces fit.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 30
Kudos: 56





	poppies whose roots are in man's veins

**Author's Note:**

> A word of warning: the mental states in this fic are less than ideal, and the hookup takes place while both parties are under the influence of opium. Proceed with caution, or shoot me a message on [tumblr](https://veganthranduil.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/veganthranduil) if you have concerns. 
> 
> The title of this fic is from [ Break of Day in the Trenches](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13535/break-of-day-in-the-trenches\)) by Isaac Rosenberg. I have internalized too much WWI poetry.

It’s the smell that hits him first.

It’s hard to describe—unlike anything he’s known before, this scent seems reminiscent of both the humid, teeming streets of Rio on the hottest day of the summer, the smell of too many people packed too closely together, and of a sickly sweet dessert, something his sisters would never make but that he perhaps had a chance to taste at an Admiralty function. It’s strong enough that he can taste it on the back of his tongue.

Francis would not ordinarily patronise such an establishment. In fact, he has made a point to avoid them in the past—ill reputation of gambling and theft just as much of a deterrent as the stories of sailors who entered and never left. Francis is a man who knows a moralising tale when he hears one, but still he has always found it prudent to err on the side of caution.

Not so today.

There are two women seated by the entrance, playing—dominoes, Francis thinks, though he is not sure. They are dressed in bright yellows and reds, but they do not smile as he nears, though they keep watching him until he has pushed aside the sliding door and entered the dark interior. His eyes take a moment to adjust, and as usual they identify movement before the stationary shapes resolve themselves: figures, sprawled on ornate but fading cushions, lazing with eyes to some distant point Francis cannot see, or asleep, pale fingers still curled around the pipe stem. The light is low and warm.

It’s there that the proprietor greets him, a tall man with dark eyes and a simple suit who belies the caricatures Francis has seen in newspapers. He lays out the terms in simple words, keeping his voice low for the sake of the other patrons, and his instructions to the point. Francis pays him, then moves into the room itself.

He thought he had the lay of it—with a captain’s eyes, he thought he’d assessed the place for its size and shape, but in truth the room is divided into a number of smaller nooks, corners into which a man can disappear, and—if the accounts in the papers are to be believed—never return. He won’t deny the sense of nausea that overcomes him when he gets a better look at the place—for it is distasteful, disgusting even, to see men who have so let themselves go, but Francis is used to the disgust he feel at excess in all manner of things, ever since he has freed himself of the whiskey. He identifies an alcove where he can keep an eye on the exit, and while that is a need he does not care to examine too closely, he follows its call.

He seats himself stiffly on the cushion. It’s not made for sitting, rather it invites one to lie back, to lounge, to sleep even. If only sleep would bring relief, Francis might even look forward to such a thing, but his dreams are blinding white and cold, and he always wakes up sweating and shivering from them. No, there is no escape for him, not even in sleep.

This is his last refuge before he will count himself truly desperate.

There is a burned-out pipe still at the ready, but a clerk comes and takes it away and presently returns with a fresh one. He makes sure there is enough oil in the lamp to keep it lit, then replaces the hood and retires. Francis takes the pipe clumsily into his hands, holds it over the lamp as he has been instructed.

The pillow next to him stirs.

He’s not sure it’s possible that he’s feeling the effects of the drug already, simply from what is in the air of it. He seriously considers the possibility for a moment. The fabric ripples, shifts, and then a yawn comes from it and Francis realises it’s not a pillow at all—there is a man, clad in a Chinese robe, who is now slowly disentangling himself from the surrounding pillows and blanket some kind soul must have thrown over him. He rights himself entirely, then flicks his hair out of his face with a gesture that is suddenly too practised, too familiar. Francis’s heart—the mangled, desperate thing—beats painfully.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I wasn’t aware this spot was taken.”

James Fitzjames looks at him with bleary eyes, then blinks a couple of times. “Francis?” he says, his voice a low rumble with the remnants of sleep still clinging to it. He slurs the word slightly, and Francis can’t draw breath all of a sudden.

James blinks again, and his eyes focus somewhat. His gaze wanders from Francis’s face down his body and following his arm to the pipe in Francis’s hand. “You might want to take that off the flame.”

“What—oh.”

He does, but then simply finds himself with a pipe in his hand and half his attention still on James, who is stretching languidly as though meeting one’s former captain in an opium den is an everyday occurrence. The robe slips down his arms, revealing their skinny form and no small number of scars. Francis looks away. Should he have forgotten why he came here, here is the reminder of it before him in plain sight.

“Don’t let me keep you,” James says, his voice nonchalant. “I don’t mind sharing the space, if you’ll give me some of that.”

Hesitantly, Francis brings the pipe to his lips. He keeps his eyes on James, as though the man will bite him if he doesn’t. When Francis seals his lips around the stem of the pipe, James’s eyes darken. Francis’s good sense wins over in at least one regard. He looks away.

It burns, going down, but not the same way that tobacco burns. This has a sticky quality to it, something of the caramel sweetness of carnival candy, with the heat of an equatorial sun. Francis closes his eyes and lets it wash over him—this is the kind of heat he’s been searching, the kind that winds its way into every muscle and bone, to un-knit him from the inside out. Perhaps it’s not so bad to waste away here—to slowly fade from everyone’s memory, including his own, until Francis Crozier, with every mistake that he’s made, is nothing but a nameless corpse that someone else has to dispose of.

He is startled from the contemplation of his own death by a hand on his own, and James’s long fingers coaxing the pipe from Francis’s grasp. Francis lets him take it, but can only meet his gaze briefly, startled as he is by the intensity in James’s eyes. It stills somewhat when James inhales from the pipe, sucking the vapor into his body with a greedy quality to it.

He sighs dreamily as he reclines back on the pillow. Francis is still sitting with his back ramrod straight, and he remains sitting as he takes the pipe back from James, who has closed his eyes and is humming quietly. Francis takes another drag, and shudders as warmth rolls through his limbs once more. There is a pleasant tingling in his hands and feet that has just begun to take hold. It is only now, with the first sprouts of the poppy beginning to bloom in his veins, that he can consider the man next to him.

Strange that he should have seen so little of James over the last months when he had come to mean so much to him by the end. They shared—they shared tentatively at first, and then everything, somehow, even when they had nothing left to give. It very nearly wasn’t enough. Francis held James, in the emptiness of King William Island, like he would never again be parted from him, and then—well.

England is a fever dream. England is too hot, too loud, too bright. How does one keep a delicate thing, raised so far away from the noise of a city like London, alive in the bustle of the town, between hearings with the Admiralty and consolation cards to grieving families? Francis doesn’t know the trick of it. He’s lost sight of James, sometime between setting foot on English soil and now. To find him here, now, just as he is seeking refuge from the nauseating certainty that he did _everything,_ and it wasn’t _enough_ —

“Why don’t you lie down with me, Francis?”

Francis’s eyes snap to James again. His eyes are closed, still, one hand lazily indicating the pillows next to him in an invitation that borders on—that borders on—

“I won’t bite. Don’t have the teeth for it anymore, I’m afraid.” James smiles a half-smile, satisfied but close-mouthed, and Francis feels guilt like a hot spike driven into his guts. He laughs, weakly. James opens his eyes at the sound.

Francis seeks refuge in the pipe. This time, the opium tastes bitter, as though something of the whale oil flame has wormed its way onto Francis’s tongue. He knows it’s only the taste of his regrets. Most food tastes bitter to him now.

When Francis won’t come to him, James sits up and takes the pipe from him. He tips his head back as he swallows smoke, a gesture practised to maddening perfection. James, a performer in everything. Francis thought he had seen the last of that act.

“What are you doing here?” Francis asks.

James doesn’t let himself be disturbed, in fact takes another indulgent puff. “I think that should be quite obvious.”

The bare facts are obvious, yes, but Francis’s question reaches deeper, to the bone and marrow of the things they have seen and can’t forget, the kind of horrors that drive a man into a poppy field of forgetfulness. He is asking if James is here for the same reason Francis is, but to pose that question would be too revealing.

There was a time when he could say everything to James. Now, he parcels out his words carefully once more, and it only serves to stoke the regrets he feels.

_Just one more dead thing left on the shale. Why mourn this one any more than the men?_

“I apologise,” Francis says, “for prying.”

James passes him the pipe; reclines back on the pillows. He raises his eyebrows at Francis. There is an insolent air about him—the looseness of decorum that comes with inebriation. “I might ask you the same thing.”

He wants, very badly, to tell James.

Here is the truth at the heart of Francis Crozier: he wants to pry apart his ribcage, pull out this heart that is no use to him anymore, and open it up for James Fitzjames’s perusal. James might see some use in it, he’s a man who values keepsakes even when they’ve outlived their practicality. He’ll know what to do with Francis’s heart. But Francis cannot—after all, he has been months without a letter, and James hasn’t written, either.

“I needed something to— _ah_ —dull the edge, as it were.” Francis winces. James casts a meaningful glance at the pipe in Francis’s hand. Francis takes a hasty drag, coughs.

He is up to his neck in it now—his body is warm and lose, but his mind is as-of-yet clear. He should do something with this clearness, while he still possesses it. There is a number of things he might confess to James: the sleepless nights, the lack of appetite, the idle wishes to disappear in the London fog or float down the Thames as just a nameless body. But these aren’t words men say to each other in polite society, and so Francis cannot say them to James now.

“I had tea,” James says. He takes the pipe from Francis distractedly, plucking it from his fingers with barely a glance towards him. “Where has that cup gotten to now—”

He snaps his fingers and one of the clerks materialises, effusive and unobtrusive.

“Another tea, please,” James orders, and the man disappears presently. “You know, I do believe I spilled it on my shirt. Might explain this attire.”

He plucks at the robe, and it slides to reveal a part of his chest. Francis averts his gaze like a gentleman, but not before noting the tone of James’s skin, not quite healthy but no longer tinted with the pallor of death, either.

 _How have you been_ , Francis wants to ask, _and tell me truly_. James, despite looking fine, does not look _well_.

James is brought his tea and sips it as Francis finally relaxes back against the cushions. The lights blend together pleasantly, and Francis feels—well, he’s not sure he feels much of anything, and that seems to be the point. A blessed relief, to be nothing at all.

“If these leaves weren’t damn traitors, I might have read your arrival in them.” James is staring into his cup with a frown. This is immediately succeeded by a giggling hiccup, and then another frown. “I do believe it was fated for you to find me here, Francis.”

“James, I—”

There’s nothing of fate to it, Francis wants to say. They are two desperate men who have turned to the last measure that offers itself to them. On half pay and wasting away in an opium den. An ignominious end, but at least an end to suffering. These days, one can’t ask for much more.

“Six months now, and not a word from you.” The smile on James’s face is cruel, a dagger turned against the man that holds it.

“I’m sorry,” Francis says, and means it.

James snorts, though there’s only a bare hint of humour to it. Francis knows this tone from the early days of the expedition. He had not thought to hear it again from James.

“I’ve been thinking about you of late,” James says, addressing his teacup and the leaves within. Francis wonders what they tell him. “I have found myself calculating probabilities. How likely it would be to run into you in a city of three million souls. Sadly, I found myself invariably crushed by the knowledge of your penchant for reclusiveness.”

The size of his error becomes woefully clear to Francis. He turns towards James, which requires the manoeuvring of a body which has become somewhat alien to him: it feels heavier than it is supposed to. Still, he manages to place one hand on James’s shoulder—bony, under the fabric of the robe. “I apologise, James.”

James stills, swallows.

“You’ll forgive me if I seem a little desperate.”

He must have nightmares. Francis has nightmares, and he was not so close to the brink of death as James—stolen, Francis sometimes thinks, from the very jaws of the thing itself. And for what purpose? So that Francis can shirk his company, as though the avoidance of James Fitzjames will allow him to avoid every unpleasant memory of the ice and the shale?

James is not an unpleasant memory of the shale. Quite the opposite. Francis—furtively, guiltily—misses that James.

Francis presses James’s shoulder. It’s a gesture with a substantial load to bear, a heavy weight to haul: it is meant to convey apology, and to bridge the distance between them like he once managed under the fickle sun and white sky of King William Island. _That is not how I see you_ , he might say again. James is not desperate. Or if he is, Francis is, too.

Francis remembers the pipe all of a sudden, a refuge, _the Marines are running_. He inhales warmth into his lungs, savours it. It cannot ease the shaking. James’s eyes follow Francis’s hands.

“I would make it up to you, if you’d let me,” Francis says when he feels brave enough to face James again. _If you’ll have me_ hangs heavy in the air between the smoke from the lamps and the opium.

James sits up. The darkness in his eyes as he fixes them to Francis should frighten him. “Francis,” he says, “do not toy with me.”

Francis wouldn’t dream of it, not if he gets to look at more than the mask James puts on.

He helps James recover his clothes and trade in the robe he was lent. They take a cab together. Francis stares out of the window at the lights, blurred past all recognition by a heavy fog. He does not look at James.

* * *

James goes through the house, lighting lamps and chatting as he goes. There is a weight under his light-hearted manner, the weight of the boat-sledge perhaps, or else James is not quite as comfortable in his role as host as he must have been, once upon a time.

“I know it’s too large for a man living by himself. Upon my return I learned that my brother had put some money in my name, quite a sizable sum in fact. I acquired this place without much thought on what I’d fill it with.”

There’s something in how he says the word, _brother_ , like he expects Francis to react to it now that Francis knows the truth of him. Francis simply smiles, and nods at the living room.

“It’s lovely,” he says sincerely.

“It’s too big,” James says with a shrug, “Do you want to see the garden?”

The garden is just as ostentatious as the rest of the house: wild, and colourful. Francis recognises some exotic specimen that harken back to James's time in China, or earlier perhaps—tropical flowers from Brazil. Francis doubts they will survive the winter, but perhaps James is planning to bring them inside, or to erect a greenhouse. It’s a far cry from the orderly and well-trimmed gardens Francis is used to, but it _is_ beautiful. James’s garden is a place to lose oneself in, but not in the opium-haze way that Francis has been craving. Here, a man might ascend among this vision of nature resplendent, then come back to himself.

He loves it very much. He reaches for words that might express that to James. What he says is: “It looks like a lot of work.”

James’s mouth twitches, a corner of it remembering the path it used to take frequently during their early acquaintance. “We are not all so content in our reclusiveness.”

James, Francis thinks, is like an Arctic mirage: Whenever Francis reaches for him, he seems to miss the mark.

A little of the euphoria, the light-headedness that come with the drugs fades as Francis stands in James’s kitchen, watching the man make tea. His limbs grow heavier, so that he thinks he could sleep until the morrow should he find a halfway suitable surface. The tea is strong, however. It bolsters him up. How long has he been awake for?

James pulls his sleeves all the way down over his hands and wraps them around his cup when he sits down. The china looks small in his hands, large and weathered as they are, but James himself is shrunk by how he curls in on himself. Francis recalls his promise to make up for lost time; wonders how he might go about it. Eventually, after a last fortifying sip of tea, he reaches out and places one hand gently on James’s wrist, one thumb stroking softly over his pulse point. James searches for Francis’s eyes. He looks, Francis thinks, like a man who is brave enough for precisely one more step.

“I’ve found myself thinking of Malta again of late,” James says, apropos of nothing, “Or Greece, perhaps. The Med has a kind of warmth that you don’t find anywhere else. Not even Syria could match that.”

He sighs—it comes from deep within his breast; the kind of sigh that speaks of more than weariness. The kind that speaks of exhaustion. He takes a sip of his tea.

“It was the strangest thing. I could stand under the blazing midday sun on one of those chalky cliffs on Gozo and I would just feel—”

He swallows, as though hiding evidence of the damning word he might have chosen. Strange that James’s stories should be reduces to nothing but this view: A quiet longing for a simpler time, the warm Mediterranean sun and his uncomplicated youth. Then again, knowing what Francis knows now about the man an embarrassed father christened _James Fitzjames_ , he can guess that James’s youth was anything but uncomplicated.

“I’m sick to death of London,” James spits, “It’s too loud, too cold, too wet. I’ve half a mind to leave it all behind.”

“Where would you go?”

At Francis’s question, James slumps forward in his seat, bracing himself on the table. “I was thinking of Lisbon. Porto, perhaps. I’ve never had an ear for Maltese, even though it’s half Arabic from what I gather.”

He shakes his head. Francis nods, though the thought of James leaving—leaving London, leaving England, even—makes breathing harder; tightens his breast. After the months of silence between them, he has no right to hold on as tightly to James as he wants to.

 _Help me out of it_ , _Francis_ , the ghastly memory of James demands.

And Francis, selfishly: _Forgive me, brother, but I can’t_.

“That might not be a bad idea, then.”

James gets up rather abruptly. “I might, if the fancy takes me. After all, there’s nothing keeping me here.” He takes their empty cups and puts them in the sink, then stands, his back turned to Francis.

“What about your brother?”

“Married near ten years now. I would only intrude on their happiness with my moods, and Will doesn’t deserve that.”

“I’m sure your brother loves you and would not mind the occasional lapse in good cheer,” Francis says while thinking _I do_ , and _I don’t_. “I hear that’s what family is for.”

“What about you, then? Why haven’t you traded in this smog for the green hills of the County Down?”

James’s tone, Francis thinks, has something of an accusation in it. It seems to him like James is trying to catch him out in some lie.

“My sisters’ house is full enough as it is, and I have work that needs doing with the Royal Astronomical Society. Perhaps when I’m old, and more decrepit yet.”

James lets out a breath, and, finally, turns back once more. His eyes have never been so dark and hard to read as now, in this small kitchen, with the scant space between them and the light of the cooking fire reflecting off of James’s skin. Firelight suits him—it brings out the warm tone of his skin, the early blessing of a Southern sun that even the Arctic was powerless to wipe away.

The muscles of James’s cheek twitch. He looks like he used to, swallowing insults he no doubt wanted to hurl at Francis. Then—with two strides, for the kitchen is very narrow and James is a tall man—James crosses the kitchen and puts his mouth on Francis’s.

There’s something of the shale in that kiss—the urge of the as-of-yet surviving to reach for something to convince them that they are, in fact, still alive. It feels natural to be kissing James, though Francis cannot quite believe it is happening. In his dreams, he has kissed James a number of times: after James confessed his illegitimacy, in the mornings of the command tent before the lieutenants showed up, at the first cry of _we are saved_ with all the delirious relief he felt in that moment. James, however, is no longer the wasted creature that needed Francis’s care. He is newly healthy, and as such he kisses Francis firmly, less the gentle care one receives at death’s door and more of the cunning seduction, certainly as he parts his lips and flicks his tongue against Francis’s. Francis gasps.

“I have missed you, Francis,” James says, drawing back. It is perhaps the first sincere thing he has said tonight: there is no casual shrug of his shoulder, no smile that deflects Francis’s concerns like a gleaming shield. Only James, his voice slightly hoarse with unsuppressed emotion.

“I have missed you,” Francis says, echoing the sentiment back with all the candour he can muster. It must be a hard sell—Francis has not written to James, and he could kick himself for it, for James here is still looking at Francis like he might disappear.

“There’s not much to miss, I’m afraid.”

James grins, a cruel twist of his mouth. How will Francis ever find peace again, knowing he has kissed that mouth? He must still be under the effects of the opium, for if he wasn’t, he might remember himself, and the consequences that spring from trading their intimacy built on their shared respect for—

“But you can have what little remains. Won’t you come to bed with me?”

He doesn’t want—and yet he does. The order is all wrong. They’re starting courtship from the back end, like they are still men on the brink. He had said he would make it up to James, make up for lost time.

Francis stands. They are nearly matched in height, but James always had more of the athlete in him than Francis, and it still shows. Francis remembers the precious few times that he saw James’s skin during the expedition—there was that foolish affair with the canoe, then one time he’d been too early for a command meeting on Erebus as Hoar was just helping James into his jacket. Then they’d all been wrapped in layers and layers, until James lay dying before him.

Now, finally, he is promised a glance that is not marred by misunderstanding, nor the petty jealousy of their early expedition, nor James’s impending death. He cannot refuse, even if he should. He cannot remember if he should.

“Yes,” he says, then lowers his gaze at how overcome he sounds.

* * *

Francis sleeps in a small bed. When he had stayed with Ross for a while after his return, the guest bed had left him feeling adrift, too large—something a man might drown in, had he not sworn off nautical metaphors. When furnishing his own rooms, he chose a smaller bed: it resembled a bunk; he’d thought it might let him sleep. Of course, it did nothing of the sort.

James’s bed is enormous by comparison. Francis remembers he mentioned money, and indeed much of the house gives the appearance of someone newly come into money, who does not know how to spend it all. He trails his fingers across the sheet surreptitiously. Soft, he thinks, and finds himself glad for James. He’s had enough hardship to last a lifetime. He deserves any number of unnecessary luxuries. 

James shucks off the tea-stained shirt. The light in the bedroom is low, but Francis’s eyes are invariably drawn to the scars on James’s body: They’ve healed over well, but they are painfully visible still, and likely always will be. James’s mouth twists as he catches Francis’s gaze. He steps up to Francis, begins the process of divesting him of his tie and vest.

Being undressed is not unfamiliar to Francis—he’s been attended to by Jopson, but it’s no comparison to the way James goes about it, like there’s hunger in his fingers that he can’t wait to sate. Francis catches his hands when they shake too much to undo the buttons.

“Let me,” he says, and places a gentle kiss to the corner of James’s mouth because he is feeling bold.

He takes off the vest, deposits them on a chair—intricately designed, and looking just as expensive as the rest of James’s furniture—but leaves the shirt on after he unbuttons it. Warmth, in his experience, is hard to come by.

James draws him into an embrace.

Francis did not expect this—in fact it is wholly at odds with the progression of events so far. There’s a tremor to James’s limbs as he hides his face in the crook of Francis’s neck, and it only increases when Francis brings up his arms to hold him. Francis feels a part of himself crack, like sea ice breaking for the brief Arctic summer. He can _breathe_ again.

“James,” he says, “My dear James.”

If James is craving this—to be held again like Francis would hold him before, Francis is more than happy to provide. In fact, he selfishly wishes that James would let him: he thinks he could sleep well with James next to him, even in this large bed. Sleeping with other people close is a habit that is hard to lose from a youth spent with many siblings and an adolescence spent on ships. Francis has found it’s easier to quell the racing of his mind when he has to be quiet for the sake of someone else’s sleep.

“We don’t have to—I’m more than happy to just—"

“No.” James draws back, and the expression on his face is fierce. “It’s nothing, please.”

He strips off his pants; sits down on the bed, in the middle where he can cross his legs and beckon to Francis. “Kiss me again.”

Francis takes off his own trousers, more for fear of dirtying James’s expensive sheets than any attempt at seduction. Then he kneels before James and kisses him.

With James’s face cradled in his hands, Francis has somewhat more leniency to explore. James’s breath goes unsteady at the first insistent press of Francis’s lips, and he stutters out a quiet moan when Francis parts them, tracing his tongue carefully along the seam of James’s mouth. The smell of him is dizzying; Francis can’t get enough of it—he seeks more of it, under James’s ear and on his neck, and breathes deep. James shudders and sinks back against the cushions.

Like this, Francis can crawl on top of him, bracing himself with one arm to keep the bulk of his weight off of James. The man doesn’t bruise easy anymore, but Francis’s heart hasn’t learnt that fact yet. He kisses James again, slowly. He savours it like he has never savoured a kiss in his life, because Francis isn’t sure James will still want him come morning.

James’s prick is hard. The discovery has Francis self-conscious, though he might have guessed—that is to say, he knows the anatomy of a man well enough—but then, he has never been at this particular point before, and he finds himself blushing. His own prick certainly knows what to do about this discovery. There is something erotic about knowing that it’s _him_ who has done this to James, only his hands, his mouth, his body.

He vows to be a gentleman about it, but James, apparently, has no such reservations. As Francis descends on his neck with small kisses, James moans and thrusts up his hips. Francis’s body is wracked by a violent shudder at that, a pulse of desire that is more urgent than anything else he has felt tonight.

He pulls back so he can look at James. He is breathing hard, and tries in vain to stifle it. 

“How would we—how do you want to—?"

By way of answering, James takes a hold of Francis’s hand. He guides it, lower, past his prick to where his skin is soft and warm, covered by coarse hair. He sighs at the brush of Francis’s fingers.

Francis is shock-still. He had thought they might—well, had thought of hands, a mouth perhaps. Nothing quite so damning as this.

He’s not sure he wants it. He’s never been a man who has to find a place to stick his prick so badly he’ll forego the less dangerous options. James wants it, though, or is offering it in any case, evidently not bothered by how tasteless it is. Francis cannot deny him something he wants, something he needs perhaps, just for the sake of his own prudish misgivings.

His fingers brush closer to that place, James’s hole, and his face runs hot with shame. He withdraws his hand.

“Ready yourself, then,” he says. There’s comfort in orders. They allow him to pretend he knows what he’s doing while others, more capable than him, carry them out.

James closes his eyes and twists his head to the side as he inserts the first slick digit. The colour is high on his cheeks. Francis watches where his finger disappears; wonders—with a detached sort of curiosity—what it will be like to stick his prick there. Tight, surely. There might be comfort in that.

James makes an aborted sound—something pained, half a moan.

“Touch— _ah_ —touch me, please.”

Well, Francis can do that for him at least.

James hisses when Francis’s fist closes around his prick. “Oh, _Christ_. That’s more like it.”

He looks—to Francis, he looks like he is in pain, so close is his expression to the privations of the sick tent. He had groaned and begged then, too. Francis tries not to think of it but finds he can't help it.

James pulls his fingers out with a wince when he is done. “That should do it,” he announces, rather brusquely and business-like for a man taking someone to bed. It is nearly enough to give Francis pause, to ask James if he is sure he wants this, but he is stopped by the memory of the annoyance on James’s face at the earlier question. Perhaps the discomfort is a necessary part of the beginning—after all, what does Francis know of such things?

“How should I—"

“Ah.” James looks bashful for a moment. His mouth hangs open, and Francis can see the half-formed request on his lips. Then James shakes his head and turns on his stomach, arse up. “Like so.”

Francis rises up behind him. James does make a pretty picture, the skin of his back pale, his hair just beginning to fall over his neck again. The desire that seizes Francis is violent—violent because it is another punishment, him making up for lost time, for something he failed to do. He folds himself along the line of James’s back until he can bury his nose in the nape of James’s neck and breathe deeply. The scent is unfamiliar but sweet. James hadn’t smelled like anything so much as blood and rot when Francis had finally held him on the shale.

“James, you’re—" He loses his words for a moment. James is a man of excesses, and Francis drowns in him. “You’re beautiful.”

The noise that comes out of James’s mouth is uninterpretable—is it a moan? A protest? Francis kisses James’s neck where the tickling strands of hair begin to sprout. Then he finds that one kiss is hardly enough, and leaves another, and James makes that noise again.

“Francis,” he pleads at length, “Just get on with it, would you?”

Francis feels that tender touches are not amiss here, but he will not deny James.

He rights himself again, feeling cold now without James pressed against him. Resolutely, he takes a hold of his prick, and guides it slowly into the hole that James has opened for him.

It is—well. He expected the tightness and the heat, but it is odd. Francis wishes keenly that James would look at him.

He draws back a little, but James is so tight around him. It’s like James’s hole is loath to give him up. Francis closes his eyes. He wants to focus only on the part of himself that is inside James, that is cradled tightly within the body of this man he’s missed so ardently. He pushes in again slowly, savouring the cinch of it.

James beneath him is uncharacteristically quiet, but at the next slow push, he grunts—dissatisfaction, impatience, Francis can’t quite read the emotion before James thrusts back against Francis with force, impaling himself on Francis's prick. They both groan.

“Fuck me,” James demands. He half turns to look at Francis behind him, hair falling into his face. It cannot quite cover the wild look in his eyes. “Please, just—”

The request is a simple one, but the problem is this: Francis doesn’t want to fuck James. What he wants to do is lay James down on his obscenely large bed until they’re back to chest, like spoons in a drawer, _two to a sack like the orphans we are_. Cradling James thusly, Francis would then touch him; to feel the warmth of his skin and assure himself of James’s health. Then, only when that is done, might he take James’s prick into a clumsy but eager hand, listen for his breath as he frigs him with all the care and gentleness he has never been allowed to indulge in. James might tremble, but Francis would hold him fast.

James, however, doesn’t want that. James wants Francis to fuck him. And Francis is an indulgent lover; he has learned to deny himself thrice over if needs be.

He thrusts forward with more force, and James makes a broken sound. When Francis stills again he hisses, then wails as Francis resumes his rhythm. His mouth pours forth a fervent chant of “Yes, yes, _yes_ ,” as Francis thrusts deeply, feeling his balls slap against James’s arse. James still pushes back against every thrust, as though he might find a way to take Francis deeper yet.

Francis has never been with anyone quite so unabashedly willing—he’s had doxies who can fake it well enough, but Francis is not a man who flatters himself to think any of that is real, and his assignations with Sophia were chaste compared to how James fucks himself on Francis. His rhythm is punishing in the truest sense, like he seeks not pleasure but pain, to exorcise some deeper ache. But even if what Francis can see of James’s face is screwed tight in a mask of discomfort, his body has no compunctions about it. It finds James’s reception—warm, and incredibly willing as it is—sufficient to bring Francis, throbbing and thrashing, to painful hardness.

He is being made accomplice to something here. He has enough wherewithal to recognise as much. But he wants James, and if this is how James will have him, shouldn’t that be enough? If James had all his senses, after all, he would not be here: not with Francis, who hasn’t written and has done nothing to earn James’s affection.

Francis looks down at where their bodies are joined, watches the firm hold of his hands on James’s hips, watches his prick disappear into James’s body over and over again, watches how James thrusts back against it. He presses his thumb against the rim, to feel himself stretch James open and make a place for himself there, and James keens.

“Yes, ah—yes, put it in me, please—”

Francis never would have—he doesn’t—

“Are you certain, James?”

James snarls and Francis hastily obeys, feeling James clench helplessly around him as he wails—a pitiful sound, his hips stuttering. Francis can’t breathe, it’s so tight. He stays pressed as close to James as he can manage and still his hips twitch forward, his prick seeking more of the tight hole that cradles him so well. His legs shake. When he thrusts forward he can feel his own prick moving against his thumb. James spreads his legs wider and Francis shuffles forward, drawing out his thumb so he can fold himself over James’s back and slip deeper still, hearing the hiccupping sound of James’s breathing as he does.

He could keep fucking James for hours, or he might come within seconds, wound tight as he is. He doesn’t want to leave. Surely this is a perversion of the closeness that they shared but it is the first time he’s felt close to James in months. He will make a place for himself here, he will mark James, so that there will be some tangible proof of their union; brothers, or whatever they are.

The thought has him cramming himself ever eagerly into James’s body, imagining them mingling inside of James. His stones are drawn tight, and James cries out as Francis speeds up his thrusts, bracing himself on shaking arms.

“James,” Francis calls, “God, James, I l—”

He bites down on James’s shoulder to keep the words at bay. James clenches around him and Francis lets go, feeling the force of his release pulse deeply inside James’s body. It pulls at him, shakes him, draws from him until he’s empty, and then it keeps squeezing him rhythmically so that Francis can only keen softly, not knowing whether to thrust forward or retreat from the onslaught of sensation. He feels like James is drawing forth everything he has within him.

He stays inside James’s body as his prick softens, feeling the sweat prickle as it cools on his skin. His body feels dreamlike, not entirely his own, as he has not known the sensation of weightlessness for a while. At last, he is brought back to himself by the thrusting of James’s body as James seeks his own end, and realises what an inconsiderate lover he’s been.

He pulls out, leaving a slow trail of proof of their union trickling out of James’s arse. “Turn around,” he instructs, “And lie back.”

There is a moment where he fears James might protest, but then James obeys his command. Francis trails a curious finger to his hole, where Francis’s claim has left James stained and swollen. He remembers his earlier reluctance to touch James there, and now feels the force of curiosity in equal measure. He uses his spend to slick his fingers; pushes them back inside and James yields to him easily. His feet scrabble against the bedding as Francis presses three fingers into him without meeting any resistance, marvelling at the heat and slickness. James’s hips thrust upwards, but he does not touch himself.

Francis leans down, then, places a soft kiss to the underside of James’s prick. James’s eyes fly open and he looks—he looks betrayed, offended, as though such softness was wholly against the rules of their union. “Francis—” he protests, but Francis has already taken the whole head into his mouth, keeping up the rhythm of two fingers now, the heat of James unbearable. Francis wishes he could rise again so he could press himself inside once more.

“Oh,” James pants, “Oh, fu— _oh_.”

He is trembling like a leaf, shaking as though he wants, very badly, to resist his body. When Francis looks up at him, he finds that James has closed his eyes and tipped his head back. His hands have the bedding in a tight, white-knuckle grip. Francis imagines it must be overwhelming, to be penetrated and penetrate at the same time; not to know which way to seek one’s pleasure. James’s hips are bearing down on Francis’s fingers while seeking out his hot mouth in an almost rhythmic dance. Francis pulls back a little, focusses on the crown, his tongue seeking out the bitter taste of James.

“Don’t—” James calls before his body is wracked by another shiver, this one more violent than the last, and bitter brine floods Francis’s mouth in spurts while James’s arse clenches around his fingers. Francis wishes himself back inside James so that he might share in this moment. He pulls off when James’s prick stops twitching but keeps his fingers inside James where he still feels the involuntary clench of muscles. James shakes at every reminder of the intrusion.

When he comes back to himself, he reaches for Francis’s wrist. Francis draws out, fingers sticky. He wipes them on his discarded shirt, then regrets it as he remembers that he still has to make his way home. James sits up, wincing as he does so. He must be sore, Francis thinks.

James goes to find a washcloth. Francis watches him, taken aback by the silence—he’d not expected grand confessions, but he feels that something important has passed. After all, surely James does not let himself be buggered by any passing man on the street?

James cleans himself up in silence, and Francis watches the evidence of himself disappear from James’s skin.

What can he say to James? An invitation to dinner would be the thing for friends reconnecting after a time of silence. He might ask James if he can stay the night, for it has gotten quite late and he is in a less than respectable state. He might tell James of the ache he feels whenever he looks at him.

He rises from the bed, clears his throat. He waits for a moment for James to say something. Nothing is ventured. “I’ll be off, then.”

Better to withdraw than to impose, he thinks. James pauses in his ablutions, turns. The expression on his face is terrifyingly blank.

“Have a good night, Francis.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr as [veganthranduil](https://veganthranduil.tumblr.com/) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/veganthranduil) under the same name.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving me a comment.


End file.
